Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Editor's note - When I began this blog a little over 10 years ago, it was a labor of love which I didn't expect to make money from. On that score, it has been very successful. I felt that the lgbt community wasn't getting proper education or guidance when it came to anti-lgbt propaganda. I am proud of how successful my efforts have been in THAT particular regard.

However, things have changed.

The proliferation of fake news sites make it very difficult for me to maintain my credibility. Not impossible, but difficult. And then there are some in the insular world of lgbt news who have gone out of their way to make sure that I know they don't regard me as an equal in spite of my two GLAAD Media Award nominations, over four million readers, and mentions in Newsweek, The Advocate, etc. To make a long story short, I have been contemplating shutting this blog down.But I won't for two reasons. 1. I'm a stubborn person and when I start something I feel is very important, I don't like to finish it until I feel the job is done. 2. With the Trump administration coming in next year, the lgbt community will need as many folks as possible who can uphold our rights, stand for our equality, and basically battle those who oppose us while utilizing innovation and unrelenting forcefulness. Therefore, instead of quitting, I will work even harder to gain more credibility ,make sure everything I post on this blog is accurate without fault, and continue to call anti-lgbt groups to the carpet for their homophobia, junk science, and outright lies.

You have stuck with me these 10 years. I hope you will continue to do so.

Minnesota Business Owners Sue For Right To Discriminate Against Gay Couples - Here we go again. And it's about filming same-sex marriages. Unfortunately, while there is a good reason for folks to stand on the side of this business, what they fail to realize and acknowledge is that allowing businesses to discriminate against marriage equality is a gateway to allow them to discriminate against lgbts period. First it's marriage. What else is next? Apartment complexes? Restaurants? We have not done a good job to explain this.

The Family Research Council is an organization which doesn't like to be publicly criticized about its agenda or tactics. The group generally likes to frame any public criticism it receives as an attack on "Christian values" and generally exploits said criticism as such in its emails and fundraising to its supporters

That the FRC has found its way back into a position of influence over
the presidency shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. The group has been
making political moves since the early 1980s. Since then, it’s grown to
become the most successful progeny of an effort among social
conservatives to move the basis of their policy recommendations away
from Scripture and toward sociology. Not that legitimate sociology is
where the FRC has arrived. Rather, the group is to homophobia what the National Policy Institute
is to the alt-right—a bland, respectable-sounding, quasi-academic front
for a hateful, regressive ideology. It comes packaged in a way that
looks like real science but is really just cherrypicked data stitched
together to serve its agenda.

“A whole slew of real scientists who have demanded that the Family
Research Council stop using their data,” says Mark Potok, a senior
fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has designated the FRC
an extremist group.

. . . The papers the FRC produces often purport to be meta-analyses—studies of
studies. Rather than compiling an accurate synthesis of mainstream
scientific inquiry, however, the group mis-contextualizes data to arrive
at a desired conclusion. This technique is how the FRC manages to link
homosexuality to, among other things, pedophilia and shortened
lifespans, despite strong scientific consensus to the contrary. When the
group is not twisting mainstream scientists’ numbers, it’s citing
organizations such as the American College of Pediatricians, which sure sounds like the American Academy of Pediatrics but is actually a far-right breakaway group with only 200 members.

The article was significant for two reasons. 1. It avoided the "religious angle" FRC generally uses to cover up its anti-lgbt bias. 2 Since its publication, no one from FRC, including its president, Tony Perkins, has made any comment on it.

And that last point is highly striking. A high level Washington beltway organization, albeit one thought of as a hate group by a large number of people, not answering the charges that it relies on junk science is a major deal.

Maybe FRC is hoping that whatever controversy the article may bring will pass without generating any significant discussion or look into its doings. If this is the case, it sounds like there does need to be a serious degree of discussion on this issue.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.